Two new Earth Explorer concepts to understand our rapidly changing world

15 November 2017

ESA has chosen two concepts, FORUM and SKIM, to be developed further and compete to be the ninth Earth Explorer mission.

Thanks to new technical developments, the Far-infrared Outgoing Radiation Understanding and Monitoring (FORUM) candidate would measure radiation emitted from Earth across the entire far-infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Significantly, it measures in the 15-100 micron range, which has never been done from space before.

These observations are important because Earth emits infrared radiation to space, which is affected by water vapour and cirrus clouds, which, in turn, play key roles in Earth's temperature.

FORUM's benchmark measurements would improve our understanding of the greenhouse effect and, importantly, contribute to the accuracy of climate change assessments that form the basis for policy decisions.

These new measurements would improve our understanding of vertical and horizontal ocean–surface dynamics over the global ocean every few days. This would lead to better knowledge of how the ocean and atmosphere interact - for example, how atmospheric carbon dioxide is drawn down into the ocean.

SKIM would have particular relevance for understanding the rapidly changing Arctic Ocean, and for observing equatorial regions where conventional satellite altimeters are unable to provide useful measurements of currents.